Middle East News
10 dead, 18 wounded in Tikrit police command so far (1st Lead)
Jun 10, 2007, 8:39 GMT
Baghdad - A rescue team has removed 10 dead bodies from the scene of an explosion after a fuel tanker crashed into the Tikrit police command Sunday destroying the two-storey building, a police source in Tikrit said.
Those killed include five police officers and 18 policemen were wounded, the source added, as rescue operations were still underway.
Security forces, meanwhile, sealed off the roads leading to the site, as ambulances and fire trucks were heard rushing to the scene.
Tikrit, 170 kilometres north of Baghdad, is the hometown of the executed former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and a stronghold of the dictator's Baath party.
A verdict was expected Sunday in the Anfal case trial of six top defendants including Saddam's cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid, known as chemical Ali for the chemical weapons attacks against the Kurds.
An estimated 180,000 Kurds were killed in Saddam's campaign codenamed Operation Anfal (Spoils of War), when the Iraqi army allegedly carried out a scorched-earth campaign against hundreds of villages in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq in 1987-1988.
Saddam Hussein was tried for genocide against the Kurds as part of the Anfal trial. He was found guilty and hanged last December 30 for the massacre of Shiites in Dujail in 1982.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-AgenturCOMMENT
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